1. Field
This invention pertains to dough mixing machines and is specifically directed to such a machine suitable for use as a home appliance capable of mixing in a single batch sufficient bread dough to utilize the full capacity of a typical kitchen oven.
2. State of the Art
In recent years there has developed a substantial market for home appliances adaptable for use in mixing bread dough. Most such appliances are marketed in conjunction with companion appliances adapted for milling grain into flour. In fact, a prime factor in the development of the market for bread mixers has been the realization that sales of home grain mills are stimulated when they are marketed in conjunction with bread mixing appliances. Many high quality grain mills suitable for home use are available from domestic sources, but domestic machines adapted for the mixing of bread dough are not so readily available. The available special purpose dough making machines are intended for commercial application, and are thus unrealistic in size and weight for home use. Accordingly, competing grain mill distributors have been forced to select companion dough mixers from whatever general purpose appliances are available that might incidentally have the capacity to mix bread dough. Such general purpose appliances traditionally originate in Europe where the practice has been to utilize a single, multi-purpose machine rather than the plurality of special purpose appliances traditional in the United States.
The kitchen mixers generally available in the United States lack the power to mix even small quantities of bread dough. Other available appliances, for example ice cream freezers and the like, are also unsuitable as bread mixing appliances, primarily because the motors and drive trains associated therewith lack the power and durability required for this task. Efforts to utilize such appliances as bread mixing machines have thus far been unsuccessful.
The general purpose kitchen appliances imported from Europe for marketing together with grain mills are unduly expensive because of their unnecessary versatility, and they are generally not primarily designed for the purpose of mixing bread dough. The capacity of these machines tends to be limited so that a plurality of mixes is required to produce sufficient bread dough to satisfy the capacity of a conventional kitchen oven.
There has been and remains a need for a kitchen appliance capable of producing in a single mix sufficient bread dough to utilize the capacity of a conventional kitchen oven. It is necessary that such an appliance be capable of extensive, although intermittent use, but that it utilize a power train sufficiently compact and light weight to be conveniently utilized in the home. The preparation of bread dough requires a machine capable of both mixing ingredients into a fluid batter and kneading a sticky mass of dough. The dough developes widely varying characteristics as gluten is developed during the kneading stage. Preferably, both mixing and kneading should be accomplished with a single dough hook.
Heretofore efforts to develop a sufficiently powerful kneading apparatus have required the attendant slowing down of the dough hook. In fact, it is believed that slow kneading action is desirable from the standpoint of developing a palatable bread dough. Such slow speeds are unsuitable for mixing ingredients at the initial stages of the mixing cycle. Accordingly, it is an essential feature of any commercially attractive bread mixing appliance that a high mixing speed be available. The provision of multiple running speeds for an appliance involves additional expense and tends to reduce the reliability of a heavy-duty appliance.